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Mortasheen the RPG!

I think I may have done a previous topic on it, but I ain't gonna necro it, so here it is. It's an upcoming RPG who's setting the creator has been working on for around 10 years, and could be coming very soon (IE, everything is finished, they just have to edit it and give a release date).

It's set in a continent-sized lawless city of mutants and monsters called Mortasheen, where mad science runs amok and everything is decided via monster battles, all the while a xenophobic human civilization is slowly coming to try and wipe them off the map (Though they do have a decent reason)

Closest RPG I can think of to it is Genius: The Transgression, but the setting's tone is actually closer to Gamma World 7e. Here's some examples of the sort of stuff in the setting to give you a good idea of what you could expect from it:

-Several areas in-game include a forest made out of meat due to scientific runoff, a inhospitable frozen wasteland dominated by killer penguins, a desert containing a sentient bone-animating fungus, a human civilization built entirely on giant tanks, and a Japan-analogue that decides its leaders via giant robot fights.

-The setting's equivalent to Pikachu (IE, its mascot) is a bipedal, bandage-rapped platypus thing with a chainsaw for a bill. Its Mew equivalent is a giant brain with eyes and a tiny human body below it.

-Your player characters are mad scientists get to modify their stable of creatures as they level up with various improvements. Your "Class" in thsi game is the various schools of Science, including Manager (Think the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert except smart), Electrician, Alchemy (Which is more repurposing molecules), Necromizers (Think really emo nanite-using necromancers), and Surgeons, to name a few.

-Swarms of bugs are one of the basic fundamental attack types, yo ucan use radiation to make the aforementioned Brundlefly-types grow giant temporarily, and the base currency of the setting is blood.

So, when it comes out, would you consider playing it? You can see the whole bestiary here, which you should check out if you ever need some ideas for homebrew monsters, and some more setting details here and here.

There's also a chart here for rolling up random mutant PCs if you like stuff liek the D&D Hordeling chart.

Re: Mortasheen the RPG!

Also, the creator just got finished with Mortaween, a thing where every day of October he made one monster a day, and if you want to get an idea of what Mortasheen's basic creatures are like, this'd be a good palce to start. It includes such things as:

An autocannibalistic hydra who's blood can cause other creatures to start eating themselves

A parody of Slenderman that manages to work well as its own original creature.

An homage to Gyo named after an onomonopoetia from said Manga

A demon-like owl-creature whose powers work a lot like the Total Perspective Vortex from the Hitchhikers series.

A creature that worships explosions as the highest form of life.

The best Twilight parody ever.

And a tombstone creature that attacks by dying and causing mass plague in its wake.

Re: Mortasheen the RPG!

By the way, why has nobody posted any replies in this thread? Is it not relevant to your interests, or is this one of those things that you go "Neat, I guess" and don't have anything to say on it?.

Well, to prevent this from becoming a pointless bump/whine-post, here's my ideas for how I'd use some of the creatures if statted up for D&D:

The Zombie spawn, with their creepy healing factor and their many fetus-like variant forms, seem like they'd be a way more interesting version of positive-energy undead than the Deathless, especially the Afterspawn,, Zyghast and Belzuga.

The Botanicals would be good for any forest-based adventure, with Daemonut and Willoweirdseeming like perfect candidates for the big bad of an adventure, and Manglewood seems like an excellent "boss fight" monster

The Slime monster, with its many variants, would seem like the perfect basis for at least several oozes, and the Oozoid and Oozonaut would make great Ooze/Construct hybrids.

Almost all of the Aquatic vampires, most prominently Abysmal and Hydrac, seem like perfect villains for a Nautical campaign.

Since they all have that "Brundlefly" inspiration, all of the Arthropoids would be excelelnt to base certaint types of Broken ones on, with Blighterfly, Venomax and Blobotle most encapsulating the "twisted human" look.

The Unknowns are an excellent absis for Aberrations, with the Genetisaur and Genetimorph[/URL] working really well as "Alien" substitutes for a "Abandoned, Monster-fileld castle" adventure, and the Xenogog, Longfellow and Radiovade perfect for showing off the weirdness of the Far Realm.

Re: Mortasheen the RPG!

Well, sorta, in that the guy behind it has been working on the bestiary for 10 years before the RPG started development, though there isn't much media behind it other than the monster list and this neat little cartoon short. Though one of the NPCs, Dr. Deekay, is getting an indie-produced OMFG figurine made of it.

Re: Mortasheen the RPG!

Awww. I'm sorry.

I was hoping just to introduce the upcoming game to people on the forums who didn't know about it, and maybe to talk about some of the stuff you like or find iffy about it, how you might wanna homebrew/port some of the concepts over to your home games, what your Mortasheen team might be, and so on.

Re: Mortasheen the RPG!

I believe it's their own unique system. They haven't said what its main dice mechanic is (Dice pool, roll high, roll low, ect.) but they did say you don't so much gain levels as you gain time in the lab to improve your monsters or your own abilities (Which Mr. Cales ,the game's mechanics-designer said would be like feats 'but cooler"), which is gained on a per-adventure basis rather than a per-fight basis.

They've said speed wouldn't be a part of the battle system, but Status effects and damage types would be. They also said that combat would be sort of like Pokemon, except for the goal is to kill the trainer (Which is why Swarm attacks are so deadly, they target both the trainer and the monsters). and that's all I can remember for now.

So, given a quick look at the bestiary linked to on the first post, which monsters would some of you folks on the forums like on your team? Keep in mind, Mortasheen teams usually contain 10 monsters, and Vampires and Devilbirds tend to be higher "level" (so to speak) monsters.